


Roses There Are Many

by jlb



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Tam Lin (Traditional Ballad)
Genre: Ballad 39: Tam Lin, Children, F/M, References to the Child Ballads
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-09
Updated: 2019-02-09
Packaged: 2019-10-24 19:07:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17709878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jlb/pseuds/jlb
Summary: Following the war Hermione finds herself a single mother, heartbroken, and cursed





	Roses There Are Many

The babe keeps trying to grab the blossoms that spill over the back gate of the garden. Hermione has placed a shield charm around them, not just because the thorns are sharp but also because the roses bloom all year round. She asked Neville about it once but he had no good answer for her, and she can find no mention of roses in any herbology books. Wizards do not seem to have much interest in decorative plants.

She’d named the babe Perdita.

“It’s not exactly a happy name is it?” Harry had commented, “It sounds like..”

“Perdition?” 

“Well, yes” he says sheepishly.

“It’s the name of a princess in Shakespeare’s “The Winter’s Tale”” 

“Okay”

Harry always stands awkwardly under the eaves of the porch when he comes to visit. He refuse to knock. He had told her once that he was afraid to wake the babe, but Hermione wonders if he is uncertain of his welcome. She always tries to be hospitable, even in the early days when all Perdita seemed to do was cry and it was all she could do to not cry with her.

Awkwardness makes Harry into a serial cleaner. When he comes over he mops and sweeps. She once fell asleep on the couch while playing exploding snap with him and woke to find he had reorganized her kitchen cabinets.

Ron doesn’t come very often. She sees him at Weasley parties, where he is safely ensconced between his many brothers. Ron is happy, but seems ashamed to admit it in front of her. He feels, deeply, that she is unhappy, though she isn’t precisely. But he is bursting with pride at his new career as an auror and holding the hand of Mandy Broklehurst.

Hermione is holding Perdita. She remembers back in fourth year when Ron thought Mandy was ugly. Hermione still likes Mandy, they swap book recs over the tea and cake Mrs. Weasley press on every one. Hermione picks at her cake. She feels grossly full. Perdita is snuffling in her arms.

“I’m going to head home” she says to Mandy

“Are you sure? It’s not even that late” 

“I need to put Perdita to bed”

Hermione pushes herself up from the overstuffed sofa, and walks over to Mrs. Weasley to bid her goodbye.

“Leaving already dear?” Mrs. Weasley clucks, craning to look at Perdita, who is grizziling into Hermiones hair.

“Yes Perdita is…”

“Oh I understand dear! Percy was always wearing himself out at that age, and how he would fuss!

Hermione nods tiredly, half tuning her out.

Hermione takes the floo home. She spells the soot off them and lays Perdita to sleep in her nursery. The roses are white tonight and glowing in the moonlight. Yesterday they had been an obnoxiously loud shade of pink.

She locks the door behind her and goes over to her back garden gate. Hermione’s head is swimming as she lowers the charm around the rosebush. She goes to snap off a particularly large bloom and there is a hand around hers, holding it back. The fingers are long and the hand glows almost as white in the moonlight as the roses had.

The fingers are painfully tight around her own but she refuses to look up. She refuse to give time to the spectres of her own imagination. She knows the face she will see is not real. Hermione reminds herself that the only real thing here is her memory of his blood driping among the roses and face freezing into a death mask held in agony. She pulls her hand back and goes inside.

In the morning she comes back out and reshields the roses. Inside Perdita is flinging oatmeal at the door. Hermione has her turned so she no longer faces the bookshelves, but the position of the chair makes it dangerous to go back in without risking a face full of oatmeal. Perdita has a very good aim.

The next day there is a red rose on the kitchen table. The roses blooming over the back gate are the same shade of red. Hermione sets the baby on the floor and banishes the rose. She decides to pick up another book on warding when they go out shopping tomorrow.

Sometimes at night she dreams he is sleeping with his arms clasped around her. Other nights she dreams he is kissing his way up her arms and she is laughing and trying to tug her hand away. On those nights she wakes with the sleeves of her nightgown pushed past her elbows. Her lower arms are covered in thick scars, still red and angry. She had refused to let anyone heal them, even as the stream of blood down her hands made her lightheaded and woozy.

Hermione renews the wards the next morning. She starts with the ones around the garden gate. The ones around her and the child’s bedroom she anchors in salt and iron. When she finishes she is magically exhausted and Perdita is fussing. Hermione picks her up and tries to croon a tune, but her voice breaks and she ends up just standing there, ineffectually humming.


End file.
